Gantz said the economic and health crisis facing the country was serious enough to sacrifice his political future and join in a unity government.

Peretz had also campaigned on the same promise to never join a coalition headed by Netanyahu and went so far as to shave off his signature bushy mustache last fall so that voters could “read his lips.”

He and party member Itzik Shmuli are expected to join the government, but Labor member Meirav Michaeli said over the weekend she “will not be part of any move that will advance the entry of the Labor Party into the corrupt Netanyahu government.”

An angry Meretz Party member Tamar Zandberg blasted Peretz for betraying voters, calling him “an opportunist and a cheat.”

“The fact that Amir Peretz is finally creeping into the Netanyahu government is a huge deception of our voters who wanted a different government,” Zandberg tweeted.